Super Noodle Debuts Super-Hot Noodles in the West Village

This is what the dan dan noodles at Super Noodle look like before you stir them.

Younger sibling of the East Village's Hot Kitchen, Old Town Hot Pot opened on Seventh Avenue South just as winter approached last year, hoping to capitalize on the comfort-food aspects and do-it-yourself thrill of hot potting. Unfortunately, the pot never boiled, and the place closed a couple of months ago. Now it has reopened as Super Noodle, a generic moniker if ever there was one--the name could describe half the restaurants on Eldridge Street.

Here are dan dans after they've been stirred--hot as hell!

The new menu of Super Noodleis like a reconstructed version of a noodle stall on Eldridge, too, featuring dumplings, noodles, and soups at what constitutes bargain prices in this neighborhood.

The dan dan noodles--a Sichuan staple, usually served as an app--are particularly fine, in a larger serving than you usually see in Sichuan restaurants. As is appropriate, the noodles themselves are something like overcooked spaghetti, the sauce redolent of red-chile flakes and ma la peppercorns. At $5.50 per bowl, it's all the lunch or dinner you need.

As in any Fujianese place, there's a fish ball noodle soup, and a roast duck noodle soup, priced at $7 and $8 respectively. These are not Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles, but they'll do just fine. Other dishes include large doses of pickled cabbage and cucumber with scallions, both Sichuan standards and cheap, if you insist on filling out your meal with vegetable matter.

Then there are the dumplings, some pan fried and some steamed, some featuring pork or crab, and others featuring just vegetables. Particularly good are the scallion pancakes, which are light and lacy and lightly flecked with green onions.

Super Noodle is a good place to stuff yourself for less than $10, including tax and tip.

Super Noodle
70 Seventh Avenue
212-929-2188

The shallow premises only seats 15 or so; it used to be a wedding-invitation printer.

Recalling the Marx Brothers movie of the same name, the duck soup has plenty of duck in it.